SNIFF Comes to the Park Theatre Next Month

When two people who are seemingly strangers meet in a pub toilet in a small town that no one cares about, the things that connect them gradually emerge through twists and turns and unexpected revelations. Liam, struggling with addiction and money troubles, has never left the claustrophobic town that birthed him. Alex, cloaked in a Hugo Boss suit and the pride of a job in Canary Wharf, comes down to visit this quaint place with his girlfriend and an engagement ring. In a dark comedy ode to the forgotten, Sniff is a slowly unraveling mystery about two men from different walks of life who find that, in the gents, everyone is the same.

Sniff is presented as part of Make Mine a Double, a programme presenting double bills of shows that aims to give theatre makers a lower-cost and lower-risk way of producing new work in the Finsbury Park venue, as well as offering multi-buy tickets to encourage local audiences to see compelling new work. Sniff plays alongside Cold Water (14 May – 1 June), a play about wanting things so much you can't do anything about them. After university, Emma moves back with her parents in Hertfordshire, and gets a job at her old school, assisting in the Drama Department. Before long, she's spending every day in the studio with Matt, her boss, and Emma feels her life starting to change.

Co-writer Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson said, “Coming from a small city with a strong group of friends, I have witnessed how different paths in life can drastically change people's experiences of the world. Those who went to uni, those who got a job after school ended, those who left their home, and those who didn't. Liam and Alex - for me - represent these different paths and disparate realities. Another important element of the show is addiction (in its various forms) and how it can both bring short-term meaning and inevitably just as quickly take that meaning away. These substances and these habits are nuanced - and we aim to show them as such. After watching the play, I want people to ask themselves the question: who would you rather be? Liam or Alex? Because, personally, I genuinely don't know."

Make It Beautiful Theatre Company are a London based company focusing on entertaining storytelling, global collaboration and unearthing the interesting from the mundane. Previous productions include The CO-OP (The English Theatre of Hamburg, Park Theatre), Our Little Life (Black Box Theatre, Slovenia), Severn Stories (The White Bear) Dream Machine (OSO Arts Centre, The Cockpit) and The Canterbury Improv Tales (Roman Open Air Theatre). Sniff was previously presented at Theatre503, and this will be Make It Beautiful Theatre Company's third production at Park Theatre following CO-OP in 2022 and The Nag's Head in 2023.

Park Theatre presents exceptional theatre in the heart of Finsbury Park, boasting two world-class performance spaces: Park200 for predominantly larger scale productions by established talent, and Park90, a flexible studio space, for emerging artists. In ten years, it has enjoyed eight West End transfers (including Rose starring Maureen Lipman, The Boys in the Band starring Mark Gatiss, Pressure starring David Haig and The Life I Lead starring Miles Jupp), two National Theatre transfers, 14 national tours, seven Olivier Award nominations, has won multiple OffWestEnd Offie Awards and won a Theatre of the Year award from The Stage.

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